From New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is Adeline.

Today, the state of the U.S. economy so far in 2023, as explained through four different

numbers. My colleague Ben Castleman on what those numbers can tell us.

It's Wednesday, February 1st.

Ben, welcome back to the show.

Thanks for having me.

We come to you as we always do today with a curiosity about the U.S. economy.

And the meta story of our economy right now, as you and our colleagues have told us over and over,

and over is that inflation is high. The government wants to lower it and has taken aggressive action to accomplish that,

which has all kinds of ripple effects across the economy and could eventually tip us into a recession.

And since the new year began, a lot of economic numbers have been flying around, some of which feel contradictory or at the very least confusing when it comes to the question of inflation and recession.

And so we wanted to talk those numbers through with you. That's our mission today.

I will deliver perfect clarity and total foresight.

As I always do. As only you can. We're going to see about that.

I just said, I have come prepared. I have assembled these numbers.

You're bringing me number. I'm bringing you number.

This is going to have a kind of quiz show quality. I am the host.

And the first number that I want to throw at you is about the housing market, which is of course a pillar of our economy.

And that number, Ben, is 372,700.

Which, of course you know this, is the typical sales price of an existing single family home in the US in December.

And in reading about that number, I found that it's up a lot compared with the past few years.

So the reason I bring you this number is that it seems to reflect a pretty healthy housing market. Is that the case?

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